Push
by AlinaLotus
Summary: She knows so much about so little. Her world isn't sheltered anymore, isn't full of childish competitions and impudent outbursts. She has been broken and reshaped and doesn't hardly know who she is. But he knows.


**Warnings:** **AU, mentions of character death, slight language. **

**As always, feedback is appreciated. **

_...she said I don't know if I've ever been good enough... _

_and I think my head is caving in, and I don't know if I've ever been really loved by a_

_hand that's touched me..._

Eighteen is too young an age to die, they claim. Sakura thinks it's too old, really. It's too old because she should have done it years ago, just ended it all, forgotten everything and floated away like bath house steam, evaporated into the atmosphere, or washed herself down the river, slipped over the edge of a waterfall, never to be heard from or seen again.

She laughs, shakes her head. Mocks herself. _Hates _herself. It's all quite simple- that's what she's about, you know. Simplifying things. Or at least, that's what she's about nowadays. Back then, when being the smartest and having the quickest retorts seemed so important, she could spout information off like an encyclopedia, shoot diagrams and flow charts and spread sheet data at the nearest victim like pressurized water from a fire hose. Now, those days are gone, lost in the shadows of waning youth and faded like her dreams of becoming a great ninja, a protector, somebody enemy ninja would fear and ally ninja would admire, envy.

"Ah, youth."

Sakura tosses her head back in a gesture of annoyance. This was supposed to be a _private_ spot, but, as with everything in this past year of her life, he just couldn't let her have something, anything, to her self.

"What?" She snaps, doesn't bite her lip or drop her eyes in an ashamed apology as the she might have done years ago. She isn't _that_ girl anymore. She doesn't feel shame, doesn't think _sosorry_ is worth the thought, and doesn't have the innocence or patience to pretend otherwise.

He shrugs, his uncovered eye shining in the light of the moon. He crouches down next to her, too close for her comfort, but what is comfort? A shinobi doesn't care for such things. At any rate, he'd been invading her personal space for so long now that if he hadn't, she would've been surprised.

"It's okay." He shrugs, kicking his legs out, taking a seat, their hips touching.

She doesn't respond, because she knows he isn't expecting her to. It's the same, night after night. After her studies she comes here, sits on this hill that overlooks the village, and after he is released from his nightly jounin duties, he joins her.

Well, that's not quite right, because _join _would indicate some sort of invitation, and she most certainly never led him to believe she expected his company, especially on a peaceful landscape ideal for closeness. Ideal for realizing that her sensei was not some overbearing teacher, but a strong man with his own past he wished to forget, with his own pain and damn her to a date with Lee if Kakashi Hatake wasn't the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

"You miss them. It's okay."

She shrugs, and hates that she's comforted by his words. Since when did anything he had to say matter to her? It's irritating, actually, that her annoyance isn't at the fact that he's here. She's pretty sure it's at the fact that she was looking forward to it.

"I don't miss them." It's a lie, but she doesn't care. If there was one thing she knew about anything besides chakra flow and what jutsu would cure this wound or that broken limb, it was that every single human was a liar, and she, a master of the art. Why not join the fun?

He chuckles, a breathy sound that she almost misses because it's so quiet. "If that were true, Sakura," her name is like fire coming out of his mouth, the heat rolling onto her skin, seeping through her bones, "you wouldn't be crying." He reaches over, wipes under her eyes with his gloved hand.

He holds her tears up to the moonlight, incandescent and gleaming. "As much as you hate to admit it, refuse to admit it, you still feel, Sakura. That is what seperates you from- "

"Dont," she interrupts, can't take what he's going to say. He wishes to praise her, in his own way. She doesn't want it and certainly doesn't deserve it.

He knows this. He knows something else, too- she needs its. But it's enough for one night. Tomorrow, maybe.

He stands up, one hand brushing through her hair. "Good night." He says, his low voice like a whisper, leaving her wondering if he was ever there at all.

**oooo**

If Hinata was good for anything- and she was, so much more than Sakura would ever be able to tell her, to put into words- it was putting perspective into things.

"Death is death. The life of a ninja is rarely fair." She says, almost shrugs, as she helps Sakura with the dishes the following evening.

Hinata, desperate to escape her father, had moved in with Sakura. And Sakura had gratefully accepted her into the empty house. It really was too much for one person, anyway. The arrangement worked out for the best for both of them.

"That's how he thinks, on the surface. But don't you see?"

Sakura wipes her forehead with a rubber glove. "I can't see a damned thing, Hinata. Not past him. And that really _pisses me off!_" In an extremely rare burst of her old, inner self, she slams the plate she was holding against the counter.

Hinata was already picking up the broken pieces before Sakura had calmed down enough to breathe normally. "Look," she says, dumping the shards into the garbage can, "he obviously means something to you. Beyond your old student-teacher relationship."

Sakura closed her eyes, sighing deeply. Hinata had, as usual, hit the nail on the head.

**oooo**

"You're late." He notes as she walks up behind him.

Usually he isn't waiting for her, but she planned it like this. She knew if she had been waiting around for him, she would have lost her nerve by now. And really, that's what it's been like- her waiting for him. Every night, wondering if he was coming, what he would say, sniffing the air for his light, juniper scent.

She takes a deep breath, smooths the black fabric of her sweater. "It's the fifth of October." She says.

He nods, turns around. In one of his hands he holds two strands of flowers. "I know."

She is relieved, because she didn't want to have to ask. It would have lessened this, _them_, somehow. She isn't sure what, exactly, they are, but Hinata was right. They are so much more than teacher and student, so much more than comrade ninja.

"Sakura," he says, it's a question, an invitation, a command.

"I don't know how to do this, I've never...I've never been loved like this before, and I'm not saying that you love me or anything, but nobody's ever cared like you do. Where I go, what I do, what I say, what I'm thinking...nobody genuinely cares. I'm just Sakura, so damn smart, even though it's my own fucking fault my parents- "

She stops, tries to take another deep breath to steady herself, but she's racking with dry sobs before she knows it. "I let them die, I know that, I don't deserve this, to feel like I'm loved, to think that you do," she says, as his arms envelope her. She knows she should resist, push him away and step back from the line she's already crossed, but she isn't that strong, and she can't go back, not now. She's never been strong enough, she's never been good enough. She's had to pay the price for that, for her lack of- of what, exactly? Of drive? Of talent, of luck?

"It is the mark of a true ninja, to blame yourself for the deaths of those around you. You didn't hold the kunai to their throats, Sakura. Orochimaru's forces always attack from within. Their deaths are not on your head, but on the heads of those that killed them."

"Don't sugar coat my failure, sensei. I as good as pushed them off the cliff. I was never good enough. Never. No matter how hard I trained, how hard I worked or studied it was all pointless. I'm a total fucking disgrace." She wasn't sobbing anymore, the truth of her words had calmed her.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare disgrace the memory of the fallen with those thoughts, Sakura." His voice was sharp, angry, like she'd made a vital error on a mission or had deliberately put herself in danger.

She steps away from him, his arms falling lightly away from her. "I stood here, you know," She says, walking to the very edge of the hill. "So many times, wishing I could just jump and fly away." She laughs and shakes her head.

"I know." He says, and he's behind her, arms around her waist. "But I never let you."

"You never let me." She repeats, the warmth from his body more wonderful than she thought it would be.

"That's the truth." He says, as if that explained everything.

What is truth? Sakura has spent her life searching for it, whatever it is. Swallowing text books and memorizing techniques, hoping that it would draw her closer to some sort of enlightenment, that she would be wiser from her experiences, from her work.

After everything, she knows so much- about so little. Her world isn't sheltered anymore, isn't full of childish competitions and impudent outbursts. She has been broken and reshaped and doesn't hardly know who she is. But he knows.

He's always known.

"I've always known, Sakura," he says, reading her thoughts as usual, grazing his cloth-covered lips around her ear, down her neck.

She knows it's too much to hope for, that this man, this miracle, could have possibly been made for her. But they have both been shattered in the same way, clumsily put back together with hasty, inexperienced hands. It's given them pain, sometimes beyond their capacity, but right now, in this moment, Sakura thinks you have to know the scars of somebody else to really love them, to really need them.

"Shall we?" He says after a moment of silence. She nods, taking the flowers from him. Tonight, she'd lay these flowers on the tombs of her parents, and she just might do it with a little less guilt on her mind.

**Song snippet is from Push by Matchbox 20. **


End file.
